If you’re looking for Oregon coach Kelly Graves this time of year, you’d better come prepared to face his brigade of zombies, werewolves and spooky clowns in the garage of his south university home.
Graves, while equally consumed with the preparation for the upcoming women’s basketball season, is readying for his favorite holiday of the year: Halloween. For more than a decade, Graves and his family would reinvent their three-car garage in Spokane, Washington for Halloween while he coached at Gonzaga. Now at Oregon, Graves is renewing his Halloween tradition, unboxing old friends like a “mad scientist.”
“I bought a storage unit primarily for this,” Graves, who is entering his second year as the head coach of the Ducks, said. “The idea of this has kind of preceded us. People have heard about it [in Eugene] and they’re looking forward to coming by.”
Graves’ display, which started small and grew throughout the years in Spokane, has been scaled back somewhat this year, only because the family’s garage is smaller than before. Not to worry, he says. That doesn’t mean the clown room, mad scientist den or skeleton rooms are taking a hit. The fog machine, beheaded zombies and his signature coffin-rising corpse are being put through the preseason paces, not unlike his own Ducks team. He took last year off from the frightful circuit and is reorganizing his collection to streamline it for future years, he said. In the new Graves house, the garage is much smaller, so he has to be extra efficient with his display.
“I had to put this zombie away since it was scaring my wife,” Graves said as he revealed one of his favorites. “She’s not as into it as I am.”
Graves’ wife, Mary, thinks he likes Halloween so much because of his mom, who passed away on Halloween when Graves was nine years old.
“I’ve always loved Halloween. It was always a real treat when I was a kid,” Graves said.
In Spokane, spectators often began dropping by during the late afternoon of Halloween and continued until midnight, where kids spent time in front of the bonfire on their driveway. Mary often brewed coffee for late-night visitors. Graves handed out posters and schedule cards for the upcoming season. In previous years, Graves has employed his three boys to spook visitors as they traverse the garage.
“The neighborhood kids knew me as much for this as basketball,” Graves said. “It took on quite a life of it’s own.”
For Graves, the Halloween tradition has perfect timing. With two weeks before the season begins, his veterans and newcomers are working overtime for the first game at North Carolina on Nov. 15. Graves has his foot both in the gym and in his garage while orchestrating power strips for his ghostly collection, motion sensors for surprise screams and moving spiders just like a coach draws up an defensive set.
“I’m sure the Halloween stores [in Spokane] stayed in business because of my dad,” said Max Graves, Graves’ oldest son.
Follow Jonathan Hawthorne on Twitter @Jon_Hawthorne